Dangerous Seduction: A Nemesis Unlimited Novel (3 page)

“Oh, aye. India, South Africa. Fascinating places. Remind you that there’s more to life than being English.” She must have looked surprised by his answer, because he said, “Seems I’ve caught keen-witted Miss Carr by surprise.”

“Most of the men I’ve spoken to who were soldiers called those places savage or heathen. Not fascinating.”

He slanted her a smile. “All sorts of men in this world. Some don’t fit perfectly into the uniforms they’ve been given.”

She was beginning to learn that he didn’t. Looking off to the hedgerow on her right, she saw the old elm tree, its branches bent from the winds that swept down into the valley. She’d seen that tree twice a day, every day, for the whole of her life. Yet for the first time in a goodly while, the long walk from the mine to the village held something new and surprising. That something was him, with an aristo’s looks, a working man’s accent, and a philosopher’s outlook. She saw now the military bearing in the way he carried himself, posture upright, as if he hadn’t spent decades crouched in a mine but marching boldly across the globe.

“Wheal Prosperity isn’t like other mines, either,” he noted. “Most pay with actual money, not scrip. I thought that was something they only did in America, in their coal mines and logging camps.”

He may as well know the history of the place if he was determined to work there. “Ownership changed about ten years ago. The American and Australian mines drove the price of copper down. More than half the mines in Cornwall shut down. We all believed we were goners, then thought it a blessing when a new group of adventurers offered to buy the mine out.” She shook her head. “None of us knew the cost. Not until it was too late.”

Those had been terrible days. Every morning waking up with fear cold in her belly, wondering whether any of them could go on, or if they’d lose everything. She’d been afraid, truly afraid. Poverty had hovered like a thin-faced ghost over the village and the mine, as everyone had anxiously gathered on stoops and in the two taverns, waiting, waiting. Would they have a way to keep the rain off their heads? Would their children go to bed complaining about the emptiness in their bellies?

Alyce had been only fourteen at the time, and her parents had still been alive. She’d heard her father and Henry talking in low voices by the fire.

We’ve got a little money set by,
Henry had said.

But not enough, my lad,
her father had answered.
Not enough to support all four of us.

I have to run away,
Alyce had thought.
One less mouth to feed. Maybe I can get work in London at a shop or in a house, and send my wages home.

The following morning, Alyce’s mother had found the pillowcase stuffed with Alyce’s meager possessions. Instead of giving her a scolding, however, Alyce’s mother had enfolded her in a hug, scented of mineral ore, chimney smoke, and warm, maternal flesh.
We stay together,
her mother had said. And that had been the end of that.

How happy they’d been when they’d learned the mine had been bought out. How the village had celebrated: everyone in the high street, singing, dancing. Toasting their good fortune with glasses of ale.

Now there was rancid butter in the company store, and no one would or could do anything about it.

She pushed the discouraging thoughts from her mind. She
would
find a way to make things right, but the
how
of it was something she hadn’t figured out. Yet.

“Sure this is where you want to work?” she asked Simon again. Dusk had begun to fall in a violet haze, and the lights of the village could just be seen beyond the next rise.

“Like I said, not many places hiring now, and I don’t fancy reenlisting.”

Alyce only shrugged. She’d done what she could. If Simon found himself trapped here in a cycle of poverty and debt—just like everyone else—that was his business, not hers.

They made the rest of the trip to the village in silence, for which she was grateful. Talking about the old days only reminded her of what everyone had had, and lost. Reminded her of the invisible shackles around her ankles, the same shackles binding every man, woman, and child in Trewyn. The few hours between shifts at the mine belonged to her, and she wouldn’t waste them on anger or despair.

After crossing the last hill, they reached the village. Alyce had been born in Trewyn, and had woken up and fallen asleep here every day of her life. Yet, with Simon walking beside her, she tried to see it now with a stranger’s eyes.

Houses of granite crowded the high street, with more creeping along the winding alleys leading off the main avenue. Some sported optimistic flower boxes, and a few doorways had cheerful vines of ivy twining around them. At either end of the high street stood the villages’ two pubs, quiet now since the men hadn’t yet returned from the mines, but a few old men sat outside on benches nursing their ales with a measured, deliberate pace.

No shops presented cheerful, merchandise-filled windows to the street. There used to be, but they’d gone, and had been transformed into more houses. Only one place to buy anything from mutton to muslin in Trewyn.

“You need to make any purchases,” she said, “that’s where you go.” She pointed to the company store looming at the top of the street.

“It’s one of the only wooden buildings in the village,” he noted.

That he should notice this detail surprised her. “Yet it holds the most gravity—even more than St. Piran’s.” She nodded toward their plain little church set up on the hill. A rueful smile curled her mouth. “Funny that the store stands at one of the highest points in the village, as if water—or money—should flow
away
from it, the way it might in nature.”

“But nature’s rules don’t apply here.”

“Everyone’s work and toil flows
up
into the store. Unnatural, that’s what it is.”

“There’s that scientist bloke—Darwin,” he murmured. “He said that creatures adapt to their environment, no matter how unnatural it might be, or else they don’t survive. Seems like you’ve done the same here.”

“We haven’t got any say in it.”

He cast her a glance. “You’re ignoring your own decision to endure. But that’s just what you’ve done. You made a hard choice, and stuck with it.”

She peered around the village. Trewyn wasn’t a pretty place—she’d seen illustrations and photographs of nicer villages and towns, laid out in neat grids, with public squares, subscription libraries, and tea shops. It was a village born from need, built by a people who never expected luxury or even softness from life. Not pretty, but practical.

An unexpected throb of affection beat in her chest.
My home.
All she’d ever really known, and, shabby as it was, she’d defend the village until the last of her blood stained the soil.

Alyce cast a quick, surreptitious glance at Simon, wondering what he saw. After all, he’d been many places, in England and abroad, places far grander than Trewyn.

Yet she didn’t see disgust, or contempt, or dismay in his eyes. Instead, he seemed to be
studying
all that he saw, his gaze sharply perceptive, taking note of everything. As if looking for strengths and weaknesses. As though readying himself not for a new job in a new town, but preparing for a siege.

Military habit, I suppose.

Even so, it surprised her to see how he’d changed subtly. The faintest trace of danger emanated from him, like a concealed knife. Unseen, but that didn’t lessen its potential.

A shiver danced up her spine.

“I feel as if I should offer you some kind of welcoming gift,” she said. “A pot of flowers or loaf of bread. Knitted blanket.”

The wariness in his eyes faded slightly as he smiled. “An old bachelor like me would just kill the flowers, devour the bread, and turn the blanket threadbare. But thanks for the sentiment.” He glanced up and down the high street, as if searching for something.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Trying to figure out which one of these houses is yours. I expect you’ve got some kind of banner flying out front, like one of those old-time knights. Seems only right for the Champion of Trewyn.”

A shocked laugh burst from her, to be painted that way. But then, it did make a kind of sense. She seemed to be the only one in the village who regularly complained to the managers about the conditions at the mine and at the village.

Strange that Simon, who barely knew her, saw her as a guardian or knight. Strange, and flattering.

“Any particular interest in knowing where I live?” She surprised herself with the sauciness of her tone.

A corner of his mouth turned up. “I might be out taking a stroll and get lost. I’ll need someone to show me the way back.”

She frowned a little. Was he
flirting
with her? “It’s impossible to get lost in Trewyn. We’ve only got one street.”

“Maybe the place is more complicated than you know.”

Before she could answer, the rumble of hundreds of men’s voices and the thud of booted feet drifted into the village. She and Simon had left the mine fifteen minutes ahead of quitting time, but now the rest of the workers had caught up with them. Women’s higher tones wove through like flutes. Some laughed, relieved after the end of the long day, but most spoke in low voices, too tired to do much more. Alyce could almost identify every single person, even with her eyes closed. John Gill and his rough chuckle. Danny Pascoe, who still talked with the piping notes of a lad despite his age. Cathy Weeks, whose voice was as deep as Danny’s was thin. Henry was somewhere in the crowd, as well, but somewhere toward the back, since she didn’t hear him yet.

Alyce moved aside to give the returning workers room as they trudged up the high street, and Simon did the same. She greeted many as they passed, and took a bit of good-natured ribbing from some that she’d left work early. Dozens of curious gazes fixed on Simon, intrigued by the stranger. More than a few bal-maidens let their gazes linger for a bit longer. Alyce gave many of the curious her own silent, speaking glance, letting them know that she’d be by later to give an accounting of the newcomer. But as for making introductions—he’d have to do them on his own. She had enough to manage without becoming the unofficial welcoming committee.

From a narrow alley, three blue-uniformed constables suddenly appeared, including barrel-chested Tippet, the head of Trewyn’s constabulary. A murmur of unease rippled through the crowd. Alyce sensed Simon tensing beside her. Curious. Had he been in trouble with the law before?

Tippet and his colleagues—Oliver, heavy-jawed and small-eyed, and Freeman, nearly handsome in a unfinished kind of way—shouldered their way through the column of returning workers. They tugged two men from the throng, dragging them roughly to the side, as everyone else could only look on.

“Here, now,” Tippet said, shaking one of the men by his collar. Alyce recognized him as Joe Hocking, and the other miner was George Bevan, who grimaced as Oliver clenched his shoulder. “Did you think you’d get away with it? Think the masters are stupid, do you?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said. Though he’d been a miner all his life, the hard work and lack of enough food had taken its toll, prematurely aging him. His whole body was thin and shrunken. In another year or two, he wouldn’t be able to go down into the pit anymore.

By contrast, Tippet was almost obscenely robust, filling out the jacket of his uniform with sturdy brawn.

Tippet smirked. “Right. ’Course you don’t.” His smirk twisted into a sneer. He flung Joe against a wall, and the older man grunted and went ashen. Joe looked like a fragile weed, clinging to the side of the building.

Tippet dug one end of his truncheon into the underside of Joe’s jaw, and the miner grimaced.

Fury roiled up inside Alyce. Tippet never wasted an opportunity to rough up the villagers, even someone who presented no physical threat, like Joe.

Men and women gathered in a semicircle, jockeying to get a view. Restless anger rumbled through the crowd, like thunder before a storm. They were closing the ten-odd feet of distance between themselves and the constables.

“Everyone, keep back,” Oliver growled.

“Not a step forward,” Freeman added. He shoved back one man who tried to edge closer.

She had to take action—help Joe and keep the crowd from turning ugly. She took a step forward, ready to push the truncheon off Joe’s neck.

Simon suddenly emerged from the throng. He tripped over the bags he carried, colliding with Tippet. Both men stumbled.

Tippet whirled around, face twisted in anger. She felt the crowd collectively hold its breath—just like her. What would Tippet do?

Then she saw the hard gleam in Simon’s eyes as he faced the constable. Tippet wasn’t the only threat, here. Simon was just as dangerous.

CHAPTER 2.

Growling, Tippet shoved the end of his truncheon into Simon’s shoulder. As if defending himself, Simon quickly stepped to the side, one hand upraised. His other hand pushed against Tippet’s outstretched arm, right into the constable’s elbow. Tippet’s hand gave a small spasm, causing him to let go of the truncheon. Suddenly, the heavy cudgel was in Simon’s hand.

“Easy now,” Simon murmured. “No harm meant, Constable. Just being clumsy.”

“Who the hell are you?” Tippet demanded.

“Simon Sharpe,” he answered. “New machinist.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Sharpe,” Tippet snapped, though a faint tremor of uncertainty sounded beneath his words. “Give me back my baton and go about your own sodding business.”

Yet Simon did neither. He turned the truncheon over and over in his hands. “I’ve held a Zulu kerrie before, but never something like this.” He hefted its weight, letting one end slap against his open palm. “Could cause a big man a serious injury with this weapon.” With a puzzled frown, he glanced at Joe and George. “They don’t look that big to me.”

“It’s not the size of the man, but the crime he’s committed.” Tippet jutted his chin at Joe. “The company’s got fine ways of running things. Everything’s set up so they’re dealt with fairly.”